Pelosi, Hoyer split on spending bill

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer split on a stop-gap spending bill that passed in the House Tuesday evening.

Pelosi, along with Vice Caucus Chair Xavier Becerra and Assistant to the Leader Jim Clyburn, led 85 Democrats in voting against the bill. Hoyer, a moderate, was joined by Caucus Chair Rep. John Larson and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Steve Israel, along with 104 other Democrats in voting yes.

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The bill, which passed overwhelmingly 335-91, buys Congress an extra two weeks, until March 18, to negotiate a measure that will fund the federal government through the rest of the fiscal year.

It was no surprise that Pelosi didn’t support the measure. She had harsh words for it, even after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he’d back it last week. Pelosi objected to cuts to education, saying those alone made the bill “not a good place to start.” On the floor Tuesday afternoon, she delivered a long speech chastising Republicans for allowing debt to mount under President George W. Bush, while now calling for drastic cuts.

Hoyer called the two-week stop-gap inefficient, but he did not come out as strongly against the [cuts themselves.] Ultimately he supported the deal.

“It disrupts both the public sector but more importantly it is extraordinarily disruptive of the private sector,” he told reporters Tuesday before the vote. “No one can plan effectively for good policy based on 14-day authorizations.”